Becca Trent lived her childhood next to a cruel woman—her mom—who lived to torment and neglect her. During her high school years, her mother married; bringing home not only a new husband, but a step sister her same age. The latter took over her Mom’s role—making Becca’s life miserable. Including stealing Ian—Becca’s best friend and boyfriend—Lisa treated her worse than her mother had for the previous fifteen years. A couple of years later, things ended up in tragedy.

Becca buried that part of her life in the deep corners of her psyche, but that only work during the days when the nightmares didn’t come back to haunt her. Her best friend, Dan gives her that family love she always lacked. Everything was close to perfect, until everything and everyone from her past came back. Now, she’s trying to figure out how to survive and keep that bond which seems now to be held together by a thread.

Claudia lives in Colorado with her family and three dogs. Two beagles who believe they are human, and a bichon who thinks she’s a beagle. While managing life, she works as a CFO at a small IT Company. She’s a dreamer who enjoys music, laughter and a good story.

“I’m home, baby. You’re not alone. Go to sleep and rest, crazy, persistent little thing.” he sprinkled kisses all over my face and hair. “My princess, I’m sorry for leaving you. I missed you more than you can imagine. I’m going to be outside with our friends for a while, but I’ll come back to you soon.”

*

The pantry was dark. Mom had taken the light bulb out because I’d cried when she told me about her date.

“Shut up, fucking ungrateful brat.” She banged the door. I whimpered quietly, afraid she’d smack me again. “The neighbors next door might hear you, and then what would they think about me?”

I hugged my stuffed puppy, and shut my eyes to avoid the darkness.

Morning would come soon, and she’d let me out. Grandma used to take care of me when Mom went out, but since she’d died, the pantry had become my second room.

The door opened and closed. She’d come back early. I stood up, waiting for her to let me out so I could go to my room. But when she finally let me out, she dragged me by the hair to the living room.

“Look at me.” She sat me on the couch and squeezed my cheeks very hard after slapping me a few times. My face stung.

“You’re hurting me,” I mumbled, tears dripping slowly down my face.

“You ruined my life,” she screamed into my face, her hot stinky breath burning my eyes. “After I got pregnant, your father left me. I should’ve aborted, but my mother guilted me into having you. She promised to help me, but where is she?”

“Grandma loved me.” I squeezed my stuffed puppy tighter.

Mom slapped me harder. My head snapped back, and the room spun. She snatched my puppy and walked to her purse. She pulled out her lighter and held it under the puppy.

“Not Pup! Grandma gave me Pup,” I screamed, running after her.

She dropped her into the sink. I cried harder while the flames consumed my stuffed puppy. “Please, give me Pup back.”

Giveaway:

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First Giveaway: Open internationally. Enter to win either one of two ebooks of Where Life Takes YouOR a paperback copy of Where Life Takes You. All you have to do is tweet about the giveaway, including a link to this post, and my Twitter handle: @BtwnPrintedPgs.